P.S. Just discovered not nearly as serious an issue as first believed since the cause was a far from obvious browser plugin that was somehow installed on my computer!

]]>http://davidgreen.com/negativity-involving-googles-new-warning-its-a-parked-domain/feed/0Long Email Address & Lower Quality Ext Negativityhttp://davidgreen.com/long-email-address-low-quality-ext-negativity/
http://davidgreen.com/long-email-address-low-quality-ext-negativity/#commentsSat, 26 Oct 2013 16:35:54 +0000http://davidgreen.com/?p=52940I get lots of spam every day. Upon a quick review, most all of it goes quickly in to the trash folder. However, there was something that sounded interesting about this offer involving the somewhat unique service being offered and it’s low cost and the seller saying he will not charge for the service until after delivery of the product and buyer satisfaction.

But a problem in trusting the vendor as being legitimate and delivering the exact service as outlined and also to not charge up-front got very negative when I noticed his long and ridiculous email address: bookmarks.234@nick-gray-promotion98.info (Note: I substituted a few characters to not re-publish it).

Not only was the email address extremely long and complex it also contained dots, hyphens and numbers, along with a lower quality dot-info domain extension, which is well-known as an extension often favored by spammers and scammers

As soon as I looked at the email address my first thought was SCAM or SPAM because what legitimate internet business would use such an absurd address to sell their product or service? Thus, the email was deleted and any thoughts about actually ordering their product quickly went away.

]]>http://davidgreen.com/long-email-address-low-quality-ext-negativity/feed/0Type-in Domain Cost is a Bargain vs In-Print Adshttp://davidgreen.com/type-in-domain-is-a-bargain-vs-in-print-ads/
http://davidgreen.com/type-in-domain-is-a-bargain-vs-in-print-ads/#commentsSat, 28 Sep 2013 15:15:19 +0000http://davidgreen.com/?p=52933I often hear secondary-market domain sales and names referred to as “powerful” or “expensive”. Not all domains are powerful of course.. And why exactly are the powerful ones considered powerful? Well.. As I’ve explained previously if you buy a good, meaningful, generic domain which garners some measure of organic type-in traffic for nothing more than the keyword weight of the name itself; you essentially have a storefront with guaranteed visitors coming into your door and strolling past the merchandise.

Typing in a domain isn’t necessarily like a good storefront in a high traffic location, it’s more like the gift shop at the end of a theme park ride that you have to pass through to leave the ride. Only these visitors aren’t looking for the street.. they have self qualified the topic they seek by typing that particular domain name. In the real world you have to pay to lease the space, put in lease-hold improvements, etc, etc. On the Internet, window-dressing is cheap.. the storefront and improvements which bring the visitors in “are the name”.

People often tell me domains are “”soooo expensive””… They ask: ”Why would I pay $10,000 or $20,000 or $50,000 for a great name when I can make up another name for less?” Well, if you buy a name like the one described above with organic, generic-intent type-in type-in traffic; 10, 20 or 50 thousand dollars is not a lot of money. Years ago I worked in marketing consumer electronics and we purchased full page magazine ad-space in “gamer” magazines for $15,000 for the month..

That’s one side of one page, for one-month… and that didn’t include artwork. It was just to build nebulous concepts like “mind-share” with the gaming public. You can’t put mindshare in the bank folks. Had we bought a great domain for $15,000 (and we could have gotten gaming.com or games.com for $15000 back then) we would have gotten millions of yearly visitors forever; for nothing more than the price of the renewal fees.

(Written by Frank Schilling Nov 2007 and applicable today as it was in the past)

]]>http://davidgreen.com/google-trends-chart-of-tv-king-search-popularity/feed/0.CO.UK Domains Significant Decline in Valuehttp://davidgreen.com/co-uk-domains-significant-decline-in-value/
http://davidgreen.com/co-uk-domains-significant-decline-in-value/#commentsSat, 05 Jan 2013 22:06:38 +0000http://davidgreen.com/?p=52913Domainindex.com, the domain industry’s leading benchmarking, TLD analysis, rating and Domain appraisal service, has announced today that it has changed its rating for .co.uk from AA to B

Domainindex.com, the domain industry’s leading internet domain name benchmarking, rating and appraisal service, has announced today that it has changed its rating for .co.uk from AA to B. The step has been taken after the release on October 1, 2012 of a 3-month consultation by Nominet, the not-for-profit manager of the .uk infrastructure,into a scheme that would introduce .uk as a top-level domain (TLD). After getting feedback from Nominet meetings held in London on Nov.7and 9 Domainindex.com decided to change the .uk rating

Currently, over ten million UK domains are structured as www.anybusiness.co.uk; under the proposal, a competing structure would be introduced: www.anybusiness.uk. Domainindex has also issued an Investors Warning for co.uk and .uk TLD, and believes the introduction of the.uk TLD would massively destroy the value of existing .co.uk domains and infact Nominet´s announcement already inflicted harm to the value of .co.uk domains and the aftermarket as well as the investment climate in the .uk TLD.Our analysis of the proposal, which Nominet defends as a move to increase Internet Security, would have several adverse effects:

· The auction of .uk sites would preferentially favor trademark holders instead of existing domain holders, thereby representing an unprecedented expropriation of domain registrants and website of whom most do not own the trademark for their domain name.

· The higher costs of the .uk TLD are in effect an Internet tax for businesses in the UK and especially to domainers as it will raise the cost of holding an inventory by 800% and will lead to drop of many .co.uk names that until recently have represented significant value.

· The move will create more bureaucracy and red-tape.

· British companies would have massive re-branding costs.

· The proposal will create months or years of uncertainty as the issue is litigated in the courts.

At 7:15 am Dec 31 Andrea Canning reported about the viral video of the man who fell through the thin ice that a dozen good-samaritans went in the water to help rescue the man. But the truth is they did not voluntarily go in the water as she indicated since they also FELL into the icy water. She did not know the story. Odd she did not know the true story and reason it was viral and all over the media the day before, which Andrea obviously did not know so she could have corrected her flawed story.

Next at 7:20am Ron Mott reported from Times Square saying last year it was a “balmy 45 degrees” when the ball dropped but this year it will be much colder with a wind chill of 45 degrees. Problem is a 45 degree wind chill normally means a higher real temp since a wind chill results in a lower number vs the actual temp. which would mean today’s real temp would be greater vs last year. But even without any wind chill, 45 last year and 45 tonight would be the same anyway and certainly not colder as he wrongly claimed.

]]>http://davidgreen.com/screwed-up-tv-news-reporting/feed/0Clever Attempt for you to Open Attached Filehttp://davidgreen.com/clever-attempt-for-you-to-open-attached-file/
http://davidgreen.com/clever-attempt-for-you-to-open-attached-file/#commentsThu, 30 Aug 2012 06:32:49 +0000http://davidgreen.com/?p=52872CAUTION! This is a very clever attempt to get the recipient to open an attached file, which of course has great risk and is in all likelihood a virus or worse.

Hello, Someone recently tried to use an application to sign in to your Google Account. We prevented the sign-in attempt in case this was a hijacker trying to access your account. Please review the details of the sign-in attempt in attached file. (link to attached file is edited out)

If you do not recognize this sign-in attempt, someone else might be trying to access your account. You should sign in to your account and reset your password immediately. Find out how at http://support.google.com/accounts?p=reset_pw

If this was you, and you want to give this application access to your account, complete the troubleshooting steps listed at http://support.google.com/mail?p=client_login

Complainant requests that the domain name be transferred from Respondent to Complainant.

PARTIES’ CONTENTIONS

A. Complainant:

1. Complainant has rights in the SNUGG mark which it uses in connection with protective holder and cases, retaining straps, and stands all adapted for portable electronic equipment;

2. Complainant registered the SNUGG mark (Reg. No. 4,075,899 filed May 17, 2011; registered December 27, 2011) through the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”);

3. Respondent registered the domain name on September 14, 1999;

4. The domain name is identical to Complainant’s SNUGG mark;

5. Respondent is not commonly known by the disputed domain name;

6. The domain name resolves to a website which promotes products which compete with the products Complainant provides through links to Complainant’s competitors;

7. The domain name is not being used for either a bona fide offering of goods or services nor a legitimate noncommercial or fair use;

8. Respondent’s registration and use of the domain name are a product of bad faith;

9. Respondent registered and is using the disputed domain name to take commercial advantage of Internet users’ mistakes as to the source of the disputed domain name.

B. Respondent

Respondent did not submit a Response.

FINDINGS

For the reasons set forth below, the Panel finds Complainant is not entitled to the relief requested.

DISCUSSION

Paragraph 15(a) of the Rules instructs this Panel to “decide a complaint on the basis of the statements and documents submitted in accordance with the Policy, these Rules and any rules and principles of law that it deems applicable.”

Paragraph 4(a) of the Policy requires that Complainant must prove each of the following three elements to obtain an order that a domain name should be cancelled or transferred:

(1) the domain name registered by Respondent is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which Complainant has rights; and

(2) Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and

(3) the domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

(4) Paragraph 15(a) of the Rules instructs this Panel to “decide a complaint on the basis of the statements and documents submitted in accordance with the Policy, these Rules and any rules and principles of law that it deems applicable.”

In view of Respondent’s failure to submit a response, the Panel shall decide this administrative proceeding on the basis of Complainant’s undisputed representations pursuant to paragraphs 5(e), 14(a) and 15(a) of the Rules and draw such inferences it considers appropriate pursuant to paragraph 14(b) of the Rules. The Panel is entitled to accept all reasonable allegations and inferences set forth in the Complaint as true unless the evidence is clearly contradictory. See Vertical Solutions Mgmt., Inc. v. webnet-marketing, inc., FA 95095 (Nat. Arb. Forum July 31, 2000) (holding that the respondent’s failure to respond allows all reasonable inferences of fact in the allegations of the complaint to be deemed true); see also Talk City, Inc. v. Robertson, D2000-0009 (WIPO Feb. 29, 2000) (“In the absence of a response, it is appropriate to accept as true all allegations of the Complaint.”).

Identical and/or Confusingly Similar and Rights or Legitimate Interests

As the Panel finds Complainant failed to satisfy Policy ¶ 4(a)(ii) (Registration and Use in Bad Faith), the Panel declines to analyze Policy ¶ 4(a)(i) and Policy ¶ 4(a)(ii). See Creative Curb v. Edgetec Int’l Pty. Ltd., FA 116765 (Nat. Arb. Forum Sept. 20, 2002) (finding that because the complainant must prove all three elements under the Policy, the complainant’s failure to prove one of the elements makes further inquiry into the remaining element unnecessary).

Registration and Use in Bad Faith

Complainant does not allege common law rights in the mark. Complainant’s trademark rights in its SNUGG mark date back to May 17, 2011. Respondent’s registration of the disputed domain name on September 14, 1999, predates Complainant’s rights in the SNUGG mark by over 11 years. There is no evidence presented that Complainant existed when the domain name was registered. Therefore, the Panel finds that Respondent did not register the disputed domain name in bad faith under Policy ¶ 4(a)(iii). See Telecom Italia S.p.A. v. NetGears LLC, FA 944807 (Nat. Arb.Forum May 16, 2007) (determining the respondent could not have registered or used the disputed domain name in bad faith where the respondent registered the disputed domain name before the complainant began using the mark); see also Aspen Grove, Inc. v. Aspen Grove, D2001-0798 (WIPO Oct. 5, 2001) (finding that it is “impossible” for the respondent to register disputed domain name in bad faith if the complainant company did not exist at the time of registration).

Complainant has not proven this element.

DECISION

Complainant having failed to establish all three elements required under the ICANN Policy, the Panel concludes that relief shall be DENIED.

Accordingly, it is ORDERED that the domain name REMAIN WITH Respondent.

]]>http://davidgreen.com/bad-faith-impossible-if-domain-registered-11-years-earlier/feed/1All You Need is 10,000-mo Typein/Uniques MiniSitehttp://davidgreen.com/all-you-need-is-a-10000-month-typeinuniques-minisite/
http://davidgreen.com/all-you-need-is-a-10000-month-typeinuniques-minisite/#commentsThu, 29 Mar 2012 15:06:30 +0000http://davidgreen.com/?p=28973Re MorganLinton.com’s ProDomainer Article Sidenote: Of course if you have a domain name with a nice steady stream of type-in traffic (over 10,000 uniques/month) a MiniSite is all you need to make money.”

It’s somewhat ridiculous to point that out since of course it’s a given from such heavy typein traffic but also the fact there are so few domainers with such powerful typein domains.

Personally I consider even 30-typeins a month to be reasonably good with 10,000-month going to a single domain being extremely valuable and very very rare. I doubt if there are more than a couple readers of this site or your blog who have such high traffic typein domains and they are on the Cayman Islands 7-mile beach now instead of reading this.

]]>http://davidgreen.com/all-you-need-is-a-10000-month-typeinuniques-minisite/feed/1Long Term Declines are Likely in Domain Traffichttp://davidgreen.com/long-range-decline-in-domain-website-typein-traffic/
http://davidgreen.com/long-range-decline-in-domain-website-typein-traffic/#commentsSun, 15 Jan 2012 07:30:10 +0000http://davidgreen.com/?p=3331It appears the great success of Smart Phones combined with the strong impact and heavy usage of Apps has already done considerable damage to typein traffic along with browser-based search traffic too. Things will no doubt get worse as the mobile market expands even more.

In addition, once the new unlimted .tld’s start resolving that too in all likelihood will have a negative impact on traffic going to .com and other extensions since so many large websites will have their own tld and people will start simply typing-in that new tld instead of doing a search or typing in dot-com, etc. A random example is websurfers who will go to LasVegas rather than Lasvegas.com or bother to do a search for other las vegas websites.

This is all very distressing and disturbing news for domainers in general and especially for typein traffic domains and websites (including sites which rely heavily on search-engine traffic). Unfortunately these new development look like generating domain/website traffic from typeins and search is well past its peak of a few years ago and is quickly becoming a long-term bear market.

All of that negativity to traffic/revenue potential combined with ever increasing renewal fess (i.e. just discovered my Moniker account .com renewals went up to a high $8.99 today) makes it quite likely more and more domaine operators will let much of their portfolio expire or possibly even exit the business starting this year.

]]>http://davidgreen.com/long-range-decline-in-domain-website-typein-traffic/feed/1Michael Jackson’s Death Bed with a genuine COAhttp://davidgreen.com/michael-jacksons-death-bed-with-certificate-of-authenticity/
http://davidgreen.com/michael-jacksons-death-bed-with-certificate-of-authenticity/#commentsSat, 12 Nov 2011 17:23:21 +0000http://davidgreen.com/?p=3257Several items from Michael Jackson‘s estate are up for auction, among them and most controversally, the bed he died in.

Just like most anything you can purchase at an auction, Michael Jackson’s bed comes with a Certificate of Authenticity!

]]>http://davidgreen.com/michael-jacksons-death-bed-with-certificate-of-authenticity/feed/1Herman Cain; Not Aware China Has Nuclear Bombhttp://davidgreen.com/herman-cain-was-not-aware-china-has-nuclear-weapons/
http://davidgreen.com/herman-cain-was-not-aware-china-has-nuclear-weapons/#commentsMon, 07 Nov 2011 19:10:27 +0000http://davidgreen.com/?p=3242After just hearing Herman Cain was not aware China had nuclear weapons I am unliking him today on facebook (not due to the recent scandal but only over his incredible lack of knowledge about world events). Most of the public knows China is a long time member of the nuclear club so how is it possible someone of his stature did not?

Where has Herman Cain been for the last 50-yrs? Now liking Jon Huntsman as a good alternative to Mr. Cain. Mr Cain’s surprisingly poor world knowledge seems similar to what Sarah Palin displayed to the public 5-yrs ago during the 2008 presidential election debates.

]]>http://davidgreen.com/herman-cain-was-not-aware-china-has-nuclear-weapons/feed/0Poor Job with PPC Keyword Optmizationhttp://davidgreen.com/poor-job-with-ppc-keyword-optmization/
http://davidgreen.com/poor-job-with-ppc-keyword-optmization/#commentsMon, 07 Nov 2011 17:35:30 +0000http://davidgreen.com/?p=3226It’s hard to understand why a well known and large domain name parking firm like DomainSponsor.com appears unable to do a consistently good job with its keyword targeting of their PPC ads. Making money from the parked domain being discussed below would be extremely difficult, unless a better jon was done.

For example, the domain CausesOfMeningitis.com, which has these two important keywords in it “causes” and “meningitis” is clearly about spinal meningitis and obviously about nothing else but meningitis disease. So why in the world would just 1 of the 18 PPC ads on the page be related to meningitis?

In fact, out of the 18 pay-per-click ads only 2 are health and disease related. Ironically, domainsponsor.com in the past has been widely recognized by domainers as doing a better than average job with good automatic optimization of parked domains based on the keywords in the domain name.

]]>http://davidgreen.com/poor-job-with-ppc-keyword-optmization/feed/0Domain Sales; Numbers Game with Timing & Luckhttp://davidgreen.com/domain-sales-a-numbers-game-with-timing-luck/
http://davidgreen.com/domain-sales-a-numbers-game-with-timing-luck/#commentsFri, 04 Nov 2011 16:06:24 +0000http://davidgreen.com/?p=3221You can judge very little if any significance to value based on the number or frequency of sales inquiries.

Assuming you have good keyword names it involves mostly a matter of timing and luck to get end-user offers and sales. Depends on if a business is in need of a name at a particular moment in time and somehow stumbles across your domain which would benefit from its keyword match.

You can own excellent keyword names which are niche dominating and category killer names but never get an offer over many years or possibly get occasional lowball offers (which lowballs come mostly from domainers or non-serious end-users).

When you read dnjournal.com you may think the vast majority of names had sold for far more than what they are worth. In fact, many names which sold for high amounts may look like reg fee names or domains you would not pay anything more than $100 for but they sold for $1000s.

End-user (non-domainer) sales is little more than a numbers game involving timing and luck.

]]>http://davidgreen.com/domain-sales-a-numbers-game-with-timing-luck/feed/1Hart to Hart by Frank Schillinghttp://davidgreen.com/hart-to-hart-by-frank-schilling/
http://davidgreen.com/hart-to-hart-by-frank-schilling/#commentsSun, 23 Oct 2011 17:08:49 +0000http://davidgreen.com/?p=3210I’ve been watching lots of 1970’s TV lately. My kids really dig those easy-to-follow storylines and I love the trip down memory lane. What’s most interesting from a grown-up’s perspective is how the value of money has changed over the passage of time. A million used to be a big number in the days when Jonathan Hart flew his Gulfstream II to play poker with oil sheiks and generals. $25,000 a year was a salary that put you in the top 10%. Mr. Hart had earned his lifestyle by becoming an industrialist and self-made “millionaire”

Yesterday’s million has given way to today’s trillion and a trillion is 1 million times the size of Mr. Hart’s million. I may be an economics dropout, but my street-smarts remind me to trust the words of Abe Lincoln: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” Abe’s turn of phrase, reminds me not be lulled into suspension of common sense, as we hear about the next trillion dollar bailout and how it will magically return us to the land of growth and normalcy from whence we came just 7-years ago.

I was living in Lyford-Cay in the Bahamas 7 years ago, in the wake of Hurricane Ivan. It’s a stepford, gate guarded compound of homes and club-buildings on the western tip of New-Providence, filled with old money, country club, trust-fund types. Nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there. One beautiful night my friend, the CEO of a major bank, who had helped arranged my temporary stay, called me to go running. He waved his arm across the twinkling star filled horizon toward a group of luxury villas: “All these people are broke Frank .. They are not productive and their wealth is slipping away without them knowing it”.

What’s more apparent today than at the time of that prescient comment 7 years ago, is that in inflation adjusted terms, most of us are working harder for less. Forget the number on your PPC stats page or the price you just garnered for that 5 figure name-sale, those dollars, euro, yen and francs you’re bringing home are buying less of what they would have bought 7 years ago. My friend had started his banking career in Countries outside the modern financial system. Brazil, Argentina and Africa taught him how fragile the global financial system could be and what it was like when the coveted “system” fails. He felt chastened by the sudden increase in the price of commodities and particularly, gold (the world’s universal currency) which had risen from the $300’s an ounce to the high $400’s in a very short time.

My friend turned his conversation from our neighbors who’s collective millions were quietly losing value, to my domain names – “How much are all your domain names worth if you have to break up the portfolio and sell each, one at a time?”. Hmmm… If I sold 10% of my portfolio and slashed prices 70%, burning the furniture to get the job done, I could probably raise about $250,000,000. He laughed at the number as it seemed implausibly large in 2004. “How long will it take you at this pace to sell them all?” Some quick fingertip math revealed that I’d get around to clearing my last great .com sale around the time I blew out the candles on my 190th birthday. Time my friends, is still the most valuable commodity. The last 7 years of money printing may have staved off an economic collapse and served to make the implausible “dollar” value of our collective portfolios seem fair, but no amount of printing can bring back the most precious commodity, the 7 years we all lost.

What we really need in the domain name business is a “productivity miracle”. A quote attributed to Alan Greenspan, I first grasped the concept of the productivity miracle during an afternoon in Cayman when a group of visitors, lay on the beach in front of the Ritz. This vacation scene unfolded out the window of my office where I had an incredibly good day domaining. Without my scripts, servers, and skills I would have needed 50 of those vacationers (and then some) to accomplish what I did that day. I added permanent value to my business, while those strangers lapped up Vitamin D and umbrella drinks. You have all experienced similar days. I “was” the productivity miracle that day. Without the productivity miracle of computers, software and programming it may have taken me a month to accomplish what I did – and I’d have missed tomorrow’s opportunities because I would never have had tomorrow free.

I continue to witness the productivity miracle in the office here in Cayman when John runs our monthly renewal list in 20 minutes, or when he gets the unlocks and authcodes for names and I run the bulk transfer script to move names over to our registrar. I see it when Ryan tweaks the traffic program and Roy and Ying roll out sales-site enhancements. I see it at InternetTraffic.com when each of you post your daily add-lists which come in like a never-ending river of opportunity for each of you. It’s heartbreakingly beautiful to watch the collective productivity of all our people and partners. All that mental horsepower (which is already focused), getting re-focused via our system. It would take all the people walking on the beach today to properly handle the hundreds of sales inquiries that the automated domainnamesales.com platform handled last night.

What this industry needs is a similar productivity miracle in name-sales marketing. So many buyers out there have no idea how to go about buying a better name. They don’t understand the value proposition, or they want a better brand but don’t understand the clerical process of getting to the point where they can put their new, shiny, better name on their business card. I am working for changes in the way we market our names. I can imagine a day in the not too distant future when domains entered into the front door algorythmic search-box at Google, Yahoo, Bing return a one-box result offering to help buy the name in exchange for a percentage of namesales revenue to the search engine that closes the deal.

Google would clearly have a massive tactical advantage with an established one-box product and their search footprint. Name-sales are a multibillion dollar annual business, and there are hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales commissions for helping users facilitate the purchase of names – and billions more waiting for the party that helps those users create hosting relationships, signing certificates, email, etc. In a perverse way it may be New TLDs which spearhead the marketing push in premium domain names. As more people take up the opportunity to buy new names at registration price, the more those people will be able to identify the good names from the bad ones – and the more they will covet those better ones.

Well, a million may not be what it used to, but the million-plus names on our platform and millions of daily unique visitors they deliver are certainly appreciated here folks. So much so, that this month we intend to pass along our next rev-share tier payout to our partners. It’s the reason your wires will be just a smidge larger than the report number in your stats this month.

As our monetization platform has grown we’ve seen a large number of naked arbitrage operators try to join us. These are predominantly small accounts, with terrible names, which miraculously get 10,000 uniques a day. We’ve kept those folks at-bay. Arbitrage isn’t a dirty word. We’re all in the arbitrage business in one way or another. When you buy a domain for 10$ per year and sell 13$ per year of traffic, that is an arbitrage play. The type of Arbitrage which troubles us is the kind that changes the characteristics of traffic.

When you buy a piece of traffic from one ad network and sell it to another network for more money you are unknowingly changing the nature of the traffic you bought. Our upstreams have told us that InternetTraffic.com has far fewer traffic quality adjustments than other platforms. We are certain that has much to do with our collective vision regarding arbitrage. Visit an arb-page and click on PPC link after PPC link to get to an advertiser and you’ll see it is a frenetic, “lean back” process which bounces you around quickly, without much effort. When a user types a domain name into their address bar, they assume a much more focused, “lean forward” stance in their chair. The effort that goes into typing a URL and immediately getting your result without changing sites, creates the impression of authority and a more sincere user. It’s a subtlety that translates into greater sale conversions (traffic quality). Time and performance have born these facts out.

When you have type-in domains you are venting light sweet crude from the ground. When you run arbitrage, you are pumping saltwater into the ground to bring the heavy oil up – or worse, fracking, to get your oil. I would encourage any of you toying with arbitrage on this platform to please move that business to another partner. We have no place for it here. Arbitrage is always there for us. We can always get arbitrage back if we drive it away. Type-in traffic operators are more elusive. They have the pure traffic and we want to continue to provide a platform where it is appreciated.

Speaking of platforms – our DomainNameSales.com platform is chugging along and doing a terrific job brokering and handling sales inquiries for our clients, without charge. I continue to generate more revenue from that machine than I do from all my traffic sales. I strongly encourage each of you to embrace it, as I have. The version I use is no different than yours. I expect within less than a year, the time you spend investing in this platform will result in you turning more deals – and at greater prices than in your previous years. InternetTraffic.com’s parking program will continue to pay more than other PPC shops, but it is our goal to unlock the latent value of domain name portfolios by closing more sales, at higher dollar volumes, more consistently, than other sales platforms. I am so impressed by our site’s utility that I think, in 12 months, it will likely be the main reason that clients beat a path to our door.

Creating a great sales machine, unlocking the value of names and traffic, opening that platform for free to the masses – this may all sound very altruistic and too good to be true. But the cold truth is that I am doing this for me. If Jonathan Hart and my friend Pascal have taught me anything, it’s that I’m not getting any younger. I have a great deal of name inventory and it is my goal to unlock the value of those assets before Haley’s Comet graces the night sky above Lyford Cay again. If delivering a great product ultimately helps you to do the same for yourself, then all the better.